A star independent candidate running to unseat Labor minister Chris Bowen claims he can’t remember his own explosive comments slamming an ‘unsightly’ safety guardrail that was erected after four children died in a car accident.
IT millionaire and former Liberal Party executive Matthew Camenzuli fired off an email to Parramatta Council after the four children aged between eight and 13 were killed while walking down the street in Oatlands, in Sydney‘s north-west, on February 1, 2020.
In a message sent two months later, Mr Camenzuli slammed a 100m-long guardrail being installed on his Oatlands street to improve road safety as ‘unsightly and jarring’.
Antony Abdallah, 13, his sisters Angelina, 12 and Sienna, 8, and their cousin Veronique Sakr, 11 were killed by drunk driver Samuel William Davidson on the same stretch of road.
Five years on, Mr Camenzuli poses a serious threat to Mr Bowen as he mounts a campaign for the seat of McMahon in the May 3 election, with a surprise survey by Compass polling showing the businessman ahead 41 per cent to 19 per cent.
When Daily Mail Australia asked Mr Camenzuli if he still stood by his position on the guardrail – the subject of widespread publicity at the time – he claimed he didn’t know what we were talking about.
‘I don’t know what it is that you’re talking about in particular to a complaint or a defence or anything like that,’ he said.
‘I don’t think that’s right.’
However, a short time later, the IT boss – who was booted out of the Liberal Party after unsuccessfully suing Scott Morrison in 2022 – recalled that he had pushed for a roundabout to improve safety on the street.
Danny and Leila Abdallah lost three of their children – Antony, 13 and sisters Angelina, 12, and Sienna, eight – plus their cousin Veronique Sakr, 11, when a drunk driver ploughed into them in Oatlands, north-west Sydney, in 2020
Matthew Camenzuli (pictured), an IT millionaire and former Liberal NSW state executive who is standing as an independent in the working class western Sydney seat of McMahon, is being talked up as a serious rival to the Energy Minister Chris Bowen
In 2020, he opposed a 100-metre guardrail that was installed on his Oatlands street after drunk and high driver Samuel William Davidson ploughed into a group of children walking along a footpath in February of that year (pictured: tributes laid at the crash site)
Mr Camenzuli, who lived opposite the tragic scene, wrote an email to council less than two months after the tragedy calling for the safety feature’s removal.
‘The guardrail is entirely unnecessary for the most part of its span; the road is straight, the rail is unsightly and jarring,’ he wrote, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
He worried that the lack of consultation would set a ‘dangerous precedent’ and reportedly stood by the comments.
At the time, local councillor Pierre Esber told Daily Mail Australia that the fence was erected because they ‘don’t want another tragedy like this to ever happen again’.
Mr Camenzuli’s position was firmly opposed by the families of the victims, who told the paper they ‘never want anyone to have to endure our suffering, losing children in the way we did’.
‘There should be no debate about installing any safety measures that ensure all children remain safe,’ the statement said.
‘We will always support any road safety initiative that further protects our community and in particular innocent children.’
A permanent memorial to the victims was unveiled at the scene of the crash in January 2024 and the guardrail remains in place.
Above is the car in question that killed four children on February 1, 2020
Samuel William Davidson, the driver, was found to be both drunk and high at the time of the accident
The guardrail in question – which remains in place
The IT boss is fighting an energetic campaign portraying himself as a man of the people who is ‘sick of politicians’.
Mr Camenzuli told Daily Mail Australia he was friends with the Abdallahs.
‘There was a lot of grief – everybody’s grieving – we are very good friends, the Abdallahs and myself,’ he said.
Pressed further on the Abdallahs’ criticism at the time, he said: ‘Mate, that’s ehm…that was… As I’ve said to you, we’re…there’s not, I don’t think there’s anything to be said about that, mate.
‘That’s that. I’ve told you what I’ve got to say.’
Mr Camenzuli then insisted he had been an advocate for a roundabout to slow traffic to make the street safer.
‘At the end of the day, I advocated in actual fact for a roundabout which was built, which has actually calmed the traffic,’ he added.
‘And that was, that was in actual fact, my intent was to actually calm the traffic and make the road safer. That was the point.
‘I think there were people from the council at the time that made fun of the suggestion and then they built the roundabout because I think it was the right strategy.
‘It came from a place of trying of trying to do good, mate.’
The Abdallah family and Bridget Sakr, Veronique’s mother, maintained a dignified silence when approached by this publication for their thoughts on Mr Camenzuli’s candidacy for next month’s election.
The seat of McMahon has always been held by Labor, where Mr Bowen has been the local federal MP for more than two decades.
Mr Camenzuli’s no-nonsense policies, including reducing the cost of groceries and installing a Musk-inspired ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ to cut government waste has broad appeal
Federal minister Chris Bowen (pictured on Monday) remains confident that he will retain his seat, despite a new poll revealing otherwise
He received almost 48 per cent of the primary vote at the 2022 election and 59.5 per cent after preference distribution, but the shock new poll had him on less than half that.
A Compass poll conducted last weekend shows Mr Bowen on just 19 per cent, far behind Mr Camenzuli, who was polling at 41 per cent.
Even more astonishing was that Mr Bowen in not only trailing Mr Camenzuli, but that he was also behind the Liberal candidate Carmen Lazar who polled at 20 per cent.
If that polling plays out on election day, Ms Lazar’s preferences – which would likely heavily flow toward the independent – would see Mr Camenzuli win comfortably.
Mr Camenzuli’s no-nonsense policies, including reducing the cost of groceries and installing a Musk-inspired ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ to cut government waste has broad appeal, sometimes in surprising quarters.
The ex-Liberal Party member has been supported at some campaign events by former One Nation candidate for the NSW Parliament, Steven Tripp.
Despite being a Labor stronghold, McMahon is home to a multicultural population where many constituents hold conservative social views.
Constituents rejected both the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in 2023 and the same-sex marriage plebiscite in 2017.
Labor and Mr Bowen backed both same-sex marriage and the Voice to Parliament.
Mr Bowen’s portfolio of Climate Change and Energy has also diminished his popularity in a battler electorate where soaring energy prices have hit hard.
Such rebuttals of Labor’s more fashionable policies across the struggling mortgage belt has led the Liberal Party to target western Sydney seats as a potential path to power.
Making matters even more complicated for Labor in McMahon is that Ms Lazar is a former Labor councillor who fell out with Mr Bowen when he backed another candidate for the state seat of Fairfield at the 2023 election.
However, Mr Bowen is confident he will retain his seat, reminding The Australian that Mr Camenzuli is a former a Liberal Party member while Ms Lazar is a former Labor member turned Liberal.
‘I’m the only one with consistency,’ he said.
A permanent memorial to the victims was unveiled at the scene of the crash in January 2024 and the guardrail remains in place
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who campaigned in the McMahon electorate on Wednesday, was asked if his policy of cutting migration could stop the Liberals from making gains in western Sydney, which has a huge migrant community.
He replied that Ms Lazar’s family, who are Assyrian, showed how migrants were an asset to Australia.
‘I’ve said repeatedly that we are a great beneficiary of the migration program in our country,’ he said.
‘Look at Carmen’s family story, look at many other candidates that we have running at this election, people who have worked hard.
‘People… have come here since the Second World War period, people who have started with nothing, amassed a fortune, or people who have come here as builders and bricklayers and tilers and the rest of it.
‘We are a net beneficiary of that, but the concentration, at the moment, is on how can our migration program work best for us?’
Mr Camenzuli has been hard at work campaigning on cost of living issues.
Although he was tight-lipped about how much he has spent on the campaign so far, he did admit ‘it hasn’t been as much as what I spent on suing ScoMo yet’.
Mr Camenzuli unsuccessfully sued former Prime Minister Scott Morrison over factional preselection processes at the last election.
After he lost, he was booted out of the party. It was estimated at the time that the court loss could cost him between $500,000 and $1 million.
‘I’m just a guy from Western Sydney who wants to see a better Australia,’ he said.
‘I’ve been blessed. I’ve done well. But there’s no point having things if the people around you don’t, and for me it’s about lifting Australia and giving back to the nation that I love in the area that I grew up.’
Mr Camenzuli does not live in McMahon itself, but in Oatlands about 25 minutes away.